“The same ones that were booing at the end were going ‘Ahhh, you know, we still love you man,’” Vinatieri said with a smile after the game. “It’s all good, it’s gamesmanship or whatever you want to call it. I respect that. ... I understand the deal. That’s home field advantage that’s what you’re supposed to do, get loud, get rowdy and try to make it hard on the other team. You put your blinders on and just keep going forward.”
-AV

The talk radio hosts were saying the same sorts of things. It wasn't just the print guys.

Click to expand...

Good sports journalism is on the wane, unfortunately. These days it's about stirring the pot to get noticed. We're all worse off as a result. Call me old-fashioned, but I miss the days when you needed to buy newspapers to be informed and "informing" was what the writers did vs. selling or entertaining.

So were most of the former players turned mediots. For fans especially in this area loyalty is an imaginary one way street. Rodney did a scathing interview on radio this week about SD and how so many great players played there and were cast aside by an ownership that allows management to avoid consequence while treating heart and soul players like disposable crap. Spoke about how different the ownership and management approach was here. Sad thing is the fans in SD still revere guys who left it all on the field but couldn't get that franchise over the hump due to mismanagement. The idiot fans here can't seem to follow our enlightened management's lead here. Wouldn't be nearly as entitled if not for that guy they had to boo voraciously Sunday. Players, coaches, the owner know it. The idiots don't care because when they wouldn't reward him with a long term deal he did what he should and what all players in similar circumstances would, he went somewhere they would.

Although I will say that Ryan and Shank have always had situational ethics when it comes to these kind of things. Shank in particular has made a career out of whipping up frenzies against them that resulted in driving great players out of this town.

The guy comes on the field for the Colts to kick a field to score points against the Patriots and we're supposed to *cheer* him?!?! Screw that!

He left for money. Yeah, right. He wouldn't sign a long term contract with us. He forced us to franchise him two years in a row. He wanted to leave. Why should we be loyal to him when he wasn't loyal to us?

The Boston media needs to get the story straight before making BS comments like that.

“The same ones that were booing at the end were going ‘Ahhh, you know, we still love you man,’” Vinatieri said with a smile after the game. “It’s all good, it’s gamesmanship or whatever you want to call it. I respect that. ... I understand the deal. That’s home field advantage that’s what you’re supposed to do, get loud, get rowdy and try to make it hard on the other team. You put your blinders on and just keep going forward.”
-AV

Click to expand...

Thank God Vinatieri knows what's going on. The booing of him was good-natured and part of th game. It amazes me that dummies like Michael Felger make such a big deal out it. "The crowd's too soft!" "The crowd's too boring!" "All a bunch of pink hats!" Wah, wah wah. Then when the crowd is nice and loud and into the game, they complain about that too. Sheesh...

Guys like Ryan, Shank, Borges and Steve Buckley are quickly down-spiralling into a state of irrelevance. Their real disdain is largely toward the Patriots fan-base, although Shank hates the Krafts and Borges feels the same toward Belichick. An ex-player mediot who has morphed into a real dink in the past year is Lou Merloni. Lou knows baseball, but he's really sort of stupid in general. Unfortunately, his self-assessment relfects an opinion opposite of that. One plus about Lou is that if you text him on his show in a critical manner, he'll bite right on the air. More than a little thin-skinned.

The guy comes on the field for the Colts to kick a field to score points against the Patriots and we're supposed to *cheer* him?!?! Screw that!

He left for money. Yeah, right. He wouldn't sign a long term contract with us. He forced us to franchise him two years in a row. He wanted to leave. Why should we be loyal to him when he wasn't loyal to us?

The Boston media needs to get the story straight before making BS comments like that.

Click to expand...

Says the pot to the kettle. Adam was not franchised two years in a row. He was franchised twice in his career, signing a 3 year extension a week after being franchise the first time. We franchised him in 2005. We didn't in 2006. We didn't offer him a long term contract thereafter, although we supposedly were willing to once someone else did. We offered him a series of worthless one year salary only deals that would have allowed us to cut him before he ever saw a nickle even in that first season. A competitor with a dome that would likely extend his career offered him a 5 year deal with $7.5M guaranteed... He didn't want to leave, this FO simply put him in a position where he'd have been foolish not to. After they played hardball with him because they though they could.

I got news for you. If they pulled that crap with Tom or any of our other heros they'd have done the same thing. In fact many of them not to mention a few others did chose to leave when they felt under appreciated or valued here. Sometimes hindsight proved the team made the better choice. In others it was a wash, although the player got paid what he felt he was worth and as with all individual career choices that more often than not trumps being loyal to a bottom line business who isn't loyal to any individual to a fault.

Thank God Vinatieri knows what's going on. The booing of him was good-natured and part of th game. It amazes me that dummies like Michael Felger make such a big deal out it. "The crowd's too soft!" "The crowd's too boring!" "All a bunch of pink hats!" Wah, wah wah. Then when the crowd is nice and loud and into the game, they complain about that too. Sheesh...

Click to expand...

Adam knows that a high percentage of morons that attend Patriot games now a days are largely fringe fans of sports as entertainment. He'll have the last laugh when Kraft clowns them all when he holds Vinatieri day and Adam is inducted into the Patriots HOF and BB waxes poetic about his money kicker who clearly belongs in the Hall at Canton, too. Of course there will still be some knuckledraggers who attend the local festivities just to boo and express their passionate opinion about traitors...and they will be clogging the airwaves because they are the moron demographic that drives the same media who mocks them and whom they claim to detest.

Adam knows that a high percentage of morons that attend Patriot games now a days are largely fringe fans of sports as entertainment. He'll have the last laugh when Kraft clowns them all when he holds Vinatieri day and Adam is inducted into the Patriots HOF and BB waxes poetic about his money kicker who clearly belongs in the Hall at Canton, too. Of course there will still be some knuckledraggers who attend the local festivities just to boo and express their passionate opinion about traitors...and they will be clogging the airwaves because they are the moron demographic that drives the same media who mocks them and whom they claim to detest.

Click to expand...

Sorry Mo - I didn't know you were a personal friend of AV and knew what he was thinking. Seems to me he is a competitive athlete who went to a competitor and understands that will cause him some temporary boos whenever he comes here. He doesn't have any hard feelings over it. Why do you?

Sorry Mo - I didn't know you were a personal friend of AV and knew what he was thinking. Seems to me he is a competitive athlete who went to a competitor and understands that will cause him some temporary boos whenever he comes here. He doesn't have any hard feelings over it. Why do you?

Click to expand...

Probably Mo's ancestors got their panties in a wad when the new United States after the War of Independence refused to embrace and cheer Benedict Arnold's memory, because after all he had been a great general for the Colonies when he was originally fighting on their side.

Sorry Mo - I didn't know you were a personal friend of AV and knew what he was thinking. Seems to me he is a competitive athlete who went to a competitor and understands that will cause him some temporary boos whenever he comes here. He doesn't have any hard feelings over it. Why do you?

Click to expand...

Mo's not friends with him. He refers of most of the guys on the team by their first name. For example, Mo is on a first name basis with Belichick.

Says the pot to the kettle. Adam was not franchised two years in a row. He was franchised twice in his career, signing a 3 year extension a week after being franchise the first time. We franchised him in 2005. We didn't in 2006. We didn't offer him a long term contract thereafter, although we supposedly were willing to once someone else did. We offered him a series of worthless one year salary only deals that would have allowed us to cut him before he ever saw a nickle even in that first season. A competitor with a dome that would likely extend his career offered him a 5 year deal with $7.5M guaranteed... He didn't want to leave, this FO simply put him in a position where he'd have been foolish not to. After they played hardball with him because they though they could.

I got news for you. If they pulled that crap with Tom or any of our other heros they'd have done the same thing. In fact many of them not to mention a few others did chose to leave when they felt under appreciated or valued here. Sometimes hindsight proved the team made the better choice. In others it was a wash, although the player got paid what he felt he was worth and as with all individual career choices that more often than not trumps being loyal to a bottom line business who isn't loyal to any individual to a fault.

Click to expand...

No arguments with your post.

1) Vinatieri made the right move - kicking in a Dome and getting bigger bucks was the smart way for him to go for himself. He also picked up a ring.

2) The Patriots FO made the right move also - they got a better kicker for the years 2006+ at a lot less money.